Antonio Cesaro Discusses New Blood In WWE, His Rise, Possibly Competing At WrestleMania

WWE United States Champion Antonio Cesaro spoke with Busted Open this week to promote this Sunday's WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. You can hear Busted Open every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Sirius 92, XM 208 and online on Sports Zone. Here are some highlights:

His upcoming match with The Miz at Elimination Chamber: "Well, Elimination Chamber is the last stop, PPV stop before WrestleMania, before the big one April 7. And this road to WrestleMania is always very exciting for the fans and for the superstars as well because everybody tries to get on a roll, everyone tries to build up steam for WrestleMania and the last PPV to make an impact or a statement is Elimination Chamber. So, of course, everybody wants to give that PPV his stamp. I'm very excited to be facing The Miz again. I don't even know if he'll be showing up after what I did to him on Monday. But I'm a fighting champion, I would look forward to defending my championship and, as you said earlier, all my stuff is usually very exciting to watch. The fans can expect a great PPV. There's also going be, of course, the Elimination Chamber matchup itself, which is always very unpredictable featuring Randy Orton, Jack Swagger, Chris Jericho, Kane, Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry. You can't predict a winner there because it's so hard and the chamber it just adds a complete different dynamic to it. And of course you have CM punk versus The Rock for the championship, and The Shield versus Cena, Ryback and Sheamus. And this is only Shield's second sanctioned match in WWE and if you had seen the first one, you know what those guys are capable of doing. And of course, you have Antonio Cesaro on the PPV so it's going to be very exciting."

Excited at the possibility of wrestling at Wrestlemania: "I'm kind of a day to day kind of guy. I don't think that far ahead. What I think about is next, Elimination Chamber and defending my United States Championship. Definitely my goal is to still be United States Champion come WrestleMania and to defend that championship at WrestleManiaWrestleMania comes closer."

Why he doesn't sleep on a bed: "I'm very disciplined and I was in the Swiss Army, I grew up in Switzerland which is a very dedicated country to begin with. A couple of years ago we had a vote on if you want to have mandatory 6 weeks instead of 5 weeks vacation a year and the whole country voted no, we only want 5 weeks, which speaks for the discipline and the work ethic of Swiss people. To me, serving in the force represent that I'm not going to go soft and that's exactly what I think is the problem in America."

His rise in 2012: "It's been a great year, no doubt, but I'm never really happy, I'm always hungry for more, and I think that's what fuels me and also helps my success. I definitely had a great year, you saw me when I came into WWE with Aksana and then winning the United States Championship for Santino at SummerSlam was definitely a turning point for me and my career and I've just been on fire, if I may say so myself, ever since and I'm really looking forward to see what the future holds.

Talks about the new blood entering the WWE: "It's great and refreshing to see. I always welcome new competition or new victims. It's very exciting for the fans and the WWE universe to see fresh faces. Look at The Shield, they made a huge impact right away and it's definitely so much fun, for me, its so much fun to watch them just beat people up and [they're] just completely unpredictable and that unpredictability is actually their advantage. They're a team; it's like the Four Horsemen or Freebirds or even NWO when they started. It's a close knit unit and the good thing about those guys is they really are a close knit unit and I don't see anybody else joining them, which is great because they're really strong as a team, and they're strong as a team in any combination."